


By Means Most Modest

by Witchy1ness



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Modesty isn't exactly a No-Maj, Post-Movie 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 09:04:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18362861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witchy1ness/pseuds/Witchy1ness
Summary: Whatever happened to Modesty? Little AU fic that takes places after the first Fantastic Beasts.(The movie ends the same, only with Credence captured instead of 'destroyed.')





	By Means Most Modest

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> So I finally got to see Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald, and was so disappointed I channeled my frustration into a fanfic  
> -_-;
> 
> One-shot. Unless further inspiration strikes.
> 
> All recognizable characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Pictures, I make no money off of them!
> 
> Reviews and constructive criticism welcome, flames will be ignored.

_Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror._

_Isaiah 47:12_

 

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It’s the cape that first catches her attention.

A green so dark it seems black at first glance, it ripples in the man’s wake like something alive.

He doesn’t notice her –

_No one ever notices her_

 – watching him walking up the sidewalk where she’s hunched down, doing her best to look sad and pathetic (it’s not hard, not much of a stretch, in her threadbare dress, ill-suited to the cold winter weather) and hoping one of the nicely dressed people that pass her by will drop enough coins into her tin can that Doc will let her eat tonight.

_He won’t she doesn’t have enough and it’ll be two days in a row and her tummy is already pinching at the thought_

The second thing that catches her attention is the fact that there’s a man walking down the street wearing a _cape_ , and no one seems to be giving him a second glance.

She’s seen some pretty weird things in New York before –

_Her mind shies away from thoughts of a black smoke that destroys wood and brick and bodies_

_–_ and there’s not much that makes a native New Yorker blink, but she’s never seen anyone wear a cape outside of Halloween, and yet the man seems to be unaware of the fact that it is currently edging up to March and therefore months away from the appropriate time of year.

It does look rather warm, she thinks enviously, futilely trying to keep her fingers warm by tucking them into her armpits.

_She’ll never be warm again, she thinks_

He also has a cane, a dark stick that flashes forward as he strides, cloak gaping to show off the lovely suit underneath. But the odd clothes are forgotten when she glances up to his face and the world comes to a stop.

_She knows that face_

The hair’s not as dark as she remembers – it’s whiter than she remembers it being – and the face is thinner and has more lines than the one she sees in her nightmares, but there’s no mistaking him.

He’s followed by two anxious-looking men, dressed normally in suits and holding – sticks?

_Wands. They’re holding wands and only witches carry wands but these are men so they’re called witchers and that means they’re evil and they’re real they’re real **they’re real** I wasn’t making things up_

She’d hidden in the wreckage of her old house for hours after her brother and the man now walking towards her had left, tucked into the smallest corner still standing, mind struggling to deal with what she’d seen; what Credence had done, what he’d turned into and how he’d just….left.

She’d stayed until the rain had stopped, and then crawled out to find help, to find Credence, but _no one remembered._

No one remembered the New Salemers, remembered Mary Lou Barebones, remembered _her_ , and Modesty, who’d thought things had gotten as bad as they possible could, found out just how much worse it could get when she realized she had no one to turn to.

Credence had _left –_

_Not dead, not that word never never never_

– and he hadn’t come back even though she’d waited and waited – going back to the wreckage of her old house because there was no going back to the Church; not now, not _ever_ – not sure of anything now in the whole world except for the one imitable fact – despite everything he’d done, her brother would never leave her.

_But he had_

He _had_ , and it was all because of _him_ , it was _his fault_ that Credence had been in so much pain it had made her cry for him, _his fault_ that Credence had turned into that black smoke, _his fault_ that Credence had left her, _his fault_ that she had to sleep on the streets _, his fault, his fault, his fault –_

_“It’s all your fault!”_

She flew at him, screaming, not sure what she wanted to do but sure she wanted it to _hurt_ , like he’d hurt Credence and hurt her and ruined everything that was _right_ and _good_ in her world but of course he ruined it, he was a witcher and he was _evil_ , they were _evil_ , and Ma was right _she was right she had been right all along –_

– _she couldn’t move._

She couldn’t make out what the other two men had started frantically chanting, but her eyes could still trace the paths their wands took as they waved them around. She struggled against her invisible bonds, terror shoving her heart into her throat as there was no give and she could do nothing but cry, tears silently flowing down her face.

_They had her and they were going to hurt her and kill her and this was it this was the end –_

“Do you believe in magic, Modesty?”

Blinking away tears she stared into his dark eyes, making out the horrified expression on the one man’s face in her peripheral vision as he immediately protested, “Mr. Graves! You can’t –“

_Mr. Graves. Credence said his name was Mr. Graves_

He cut off as Mr. Graves raised his empty hand – _but how had he cast a spell, his other hand is holding his cane –_ not taking his eyes off Modesty. He definitely looked older than she remembered, with the thin, drawn look of someone who’d been sick.

_Good I hope it was bad and painful and that he never recovers_

She was shocked again when he kneeled down in front of her, once more ignoring the complaints and protestations of his bodyguards.

He waved his hand and the invisible chains fell away, and she thinks she should be shocked at _that_ too – he didn’t use a wand, they were all supposed to use wands – but her head feels like it’ll float away and is stuffed with cotton at the same time and so she can only stare in silence.

“Do you believe in magic, Modesty?” he asks her again, and she’s nodding even before she thinks to, swiping one arm across her eyes.

“Credence was magic,” she blurts, angry and accusing and ready to cry again and so mixed up she isn’t sure _what_ she wants any more.

A small smile flits across Mr. Graves’ face even as his eyes get impossibly sad, and her heart _hurts_ and she doesn’t want it to, doesn’t care that he’s sad – _he’s_ the reason everything happened the way it did, it’s _his fault_ –

“Credence _is_ magic, actually.”

_What?_

Modesty isn’t dumb, she’s only eight but she knows the difference between _was_ and _is_ and what it – maybe, possibly, impossibly – signifies, but she can’t believe it.

Because if she were to believe it, it would mean that Credence was alive and hadn’t come back for her.

And the hurt that _that_ thought causes is enough to make her feel like she may physically collapse from the weight of it. Despite everything he’d done – despite what he’d done to Ma, and to Chastity – Credence was her _brother_ , the only person she had left in the world, and to think that he would abandon her like her real family had –

“Well,” he corrects himself with a sigh, “I suppose it would be more accurate to say that Credence _has_ magic. And he hasn’t forgotten about you,” he adds, causing her to jerk and take a step backwards in surprise.

“He didn’t come back,” she rebuts, so angry and hopeful and confused she’s afraid she’s going to throw up.

“He couldn’t,” he says simply, exhaustion washing over his face as he laboriously climbs back to his feet, _and what was that supposed to mean?_

When he holds his hand out to her, Modesty can only stare at it, Ma’s fire-and-brimstone voice ringing in the back of her mind.

_Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour._

“I know that the man that hurt you had my face,” he says quietly, “but I swear to Merlin that _it. Was. Not. Me_.”

And there is such vehemence in the last four words that Modesty is taken aback, and she steps forward unconsciously, eyes searching his.

He _looks_ like the Mr. Graves from before – but older – and he _feels_ like the Mr. Graves from before, and yet….

She’s never told anyone but Credence, but she’s pretty sure she can see people’s souls. And what she can see of the soul of the man in front of her….

Modesty slaps her hand into his with such fierceness they’re both surprised, but a mere heartbeat later his fingers close on hers –

_Warm, they’re so warm_

– and they set off again, though it takes a few steps before they manage to coordinate their strides so that she isn’t pulling ahead of him.

His bodyguards are protesting again, but she can barely hear them over the sound of her heart thumping fit to burst and she doesn’t care anyway.

And when she actually _does_ get to see Credence again, her brother looking whole and _human_ and with that sad, shy little smile she thought she’d never see again, Modesty’s pretty sure her heart _does_ give out, because it _has_ to be impossible to be this happy and still breathing.

 

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